THE MOTHER TONGUE Speech is hearing and speaking our mother’s tongue which is the speech of love, guidance and protection. This is the speaking we learn to trust because it is not only the mother’s speech but the mother’s heart that is speaking. A mother is where we begin our life. For nine months we live and grow within her womb. We also grow in her love. She talks to us and feels us moving in her body. From her we learn the importance of words. The first words we learn are most often mummy and daddy. Those words remain with us all our lives. They attach themselves to us like no other words do. As we grow up we learn the counterpart of the word daddy, in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, ‘Our Father which art in heaven...’ We learn to speak of Jesus as our Father in heaven’s Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And as Mary said, ‘All generations shall call me blessed.’ (Luke 1:48)

SPEECH IS SHARED Speech is how we talk to each other. We learn words and sentences to speak our mind. Words express how we feel and what we want to do. We do this in words that have a shared meaning for words are not just our own. The meaning of words arises out of the relationship between people, places and things and that is why words have a definite and precise meaning. If the word bad also meant good how might we speak of what is bad and what is good? If the word right meant wrong how could we speak of what is right or wrong?. Words are like numbers. If we mix numbers up how might we add multiply or divide them? So language like numbers is a science. We can no more separate words from what they mean than we can call three a two or one hundred a thousand. Without numbers geometry would not exist, nor physics or time. Without words there would be no speech and no society.

LAWS It is inconceivable that the Creator of the universe should make physical laws, the laws of bodies and not the laws of souls. Bodies are, of course, controlled by physical laws in time and space. Souls by spiritual and moral laws that control interactions in families and society. The one is no less ordered than the other. The only difference being that bodies have no mind of their own whereas souls have minds and spirits and free will. Free will does not alter the laws of God for they remain written on souls and society, upon words, language and relationships.

FREE WILL The freedom to choose between right and wrong is a choice, the outcome of which is a consequence of choosing the one or the other. Like numbers, the right and wrong meaning of words is rational and predictable, as are actions and their consequences. Words are the language of the soul and the subsequent actions that follow from them, just as the thoughts are the ancestors of the deed. Words are spirit for they utter the souls longing for good or for evil, sadness or joy. They manifest the soul’s plight, fear, despair, sanity or insanity.

JESUS AND WORDS That is why the words that Jesus speaks are spirit and life. They are charged with the essence of life and living, now and forever. Are words that important? Jesus spoke of words as the difference between life and death: ‘I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned’ (Matthew 12:36-37) Words mirror the heart and soul, not just of a person but a society. It is not difficult to see and understand the soul of a whole society by its language and thought. Why, for instance, does a society change from one that has a spiritual awareness of life and death to one that represses death and worships only money, wealth and things. Our attitudes, language and priorities are mirrors of the soul.

SPIRITUAL LAWS The society I have described is a covetous and greedy society that contradicts and rejects God’s law of ‘Do not covet’ and Love your neighbour as you love yourself’, for wealth and riches are coveted and obtained by oppressing those we ought to love as we love ourselves, and draining the pockets of the poor by interest rates and high prices. These practices are against God’s economic laws. (Exodus 22:25) The science of economics is the science of robbery and violence, for such is the cause of poverty and war.

THE ROOTS OF WORDS When words are altered by propaganda, new morality, political correctness, and so on, they are perversions of language and the spirit of truth. For this reason words should be critically examined by parents, teachers and ministers of the gospel. Words flood out of TV screens, Internet web sites and colleges of education and even primary schools. Words have their roots in relationships, in precise meanings, in moral and spiritual truths. These roots are in God’s laws, just as surely as a tree’s roots in the ground belong to a species of tree and not a commonality of trees. A tree will not produce the leaves or fruit of any kind of tree because it is created by God to be what it is. The psychological laws of the spirit are familial and moral. Lust, sensuality and passion are perversions of love and fidelity. They destroy respect, friendship and trust and corrupt the mind and spirit which are natural virginal, single or married.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSE Words need not always be spoken for they can be inferred from actions like God’s creation. The Scriptures say, ‘The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.’ (Psalm 19:1-6) Words occur to us when we see the stars in the night sky, when we welcome the beginning of a new day, the sunrise, and the end of the day, the sunset; words occur to us when we consider the miracle of man, created in God’s image; words occur to us when we see a new born baby. God’s creation speaks to us with many words and meanings.

GOD HAS SPOKEN But God has not left us to infer his glory in the heavens but has spoken to us in words, the words of the gospel.